Background
Last Tuesday 15 December 2020 the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) published the 30th edition of the Human Development Report (HDR) containing its development statistics for 2019. Here we wish to assess long-term economic and education development in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in comparison with neighbouring Pacific Island Countries (PICs) and with its large Asian neighbours which have been successful in dealing with their development challenges: Indonesia, India and China.PNG's ranking last year was 156th, and this year’s is 155th, placing it at the bottom of the "medium human development" category, with 34 of the total of 189 countries doing worse. Changes in composite indices, however, are tricky to interpret, and looking at constituting factors may be more useful for distilling policy recommendations.
The HDR contains the Human Development Index (HDI) which is a composite index including indicators for main dimensions of development: economic wealth, health and education. While doing my PhD in economic history in the 1990s, I applied some of the HDR methods to historical questions about long-term sustainable development for states as well as sub-national units.
Therefore, here we will focus on the performance of the primary and secondary education systems, in particular regarding the female population, since completion of primary and secondary schooling is a condition for participating in tertiary education. Data for tertiary education, however, are too unreliable, and incomplete.
Elsewhere, I argued that if PNG can achieve a 5% growth rate and somewhat control its population growth, it can indeed achieve lower-middle-income country status in line with its Vision 2050 (see blog post from 2015).
So how is PNG performing in terms of HDI in comparison to its Pacific neighbours?
It is clear that PICs from 1980 have not shown a convincing growth performance, which would allow them to invest more in health and education systems. They will need at least to double to achieve GDPpc growth comparable to India or Indonesia, if we consider matching China’s growth not achievable.
On the plus side, PNG has made significant progress in raising the completion rate for primary schools, which was one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) no. 2 for 2015.
This short analysis of the data from the 30th edition of the Human Development Report, clearly shows that PICs need to improve their economic development performance, or in other words their economic growth needs to be two or three times higher than it actually is.
Thirdly, after a focus on MDG2 for 2015 has produced good progress towards universal primary education, in the light of the SDGs for 2030, it is necessary to focus on completion rates of secondary education. It is here where PNG has to work hard to catch up with its Pacific neighbours, or with the larger Asian countries.
Finally, it is about time to make education to upper-secondary level (grade 10) in the PICs compulsory, train the required number of teachers, and provide necessary resources to achieve this aim.
Since its first edition, this report has come a long way, and each indicator is now linked to one of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) or associated indicator and presented in various dashboards. SDG-4 for 2030 is “to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
In order for a country to achieve SDG Target 4.3 “By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university.” Men and women must first gain access to tertiary education by completing secondary education.
Therefore, here we will focus on the performance of the primary and secondary education systems, in particular regarding the female population, since completion of primary and secondary schooling is a condition for participating in tertiary education. Data for tertiary education, however, are too unreliable, and incomplete.
1. Long-Term Economic Development Performance
A conventional measure of the size of the economy based on the UN system of national accounts is Gross Domestic Product per capita. The GDP per capita in constant 2010 $ is compatible with the HDR uses GNI per capita in 2017 PPP $, but this measure is not available for some PICs nor for the 1980s and 1990s periods. These are far from perfect measures of wealth, but it is the best we have and it allows international comparison. They are linked to SDG8.5.Elsewhere, I argued that if PNG can achieve a 5% growth rate and somewhat control its population growth, it can indeed achieve lower-middle-income country status in line with its Vision 2050 (see blog post from 2015).
So how is PNG performing in terms of HDI in comparison to its Pacific neighbours?
It is clear that PICs from 1980 have not shown a convincing growth performance, which would allow them to invest more in health and education systems. They will need at least to double to achieve GDPpc growth comparable to India or Indonesia, if we consider matching China’s growth not achievable.
Although Timor Leste (ranked 141st)– which had a long civil war – and the Solomon Islands (ranked 151st) have a lower GDP than PNG, they score higher in the overall HDI than PNG (ranked 155th).
2. Long-Term Education Performance
Mean Years of Schooling
For mean years of schooling, the HDR provides data for 2019. This indicator is linked to SDG 4.4. PNG is still among the countries where incomplete primary education (less than 6 years of schooling) is the norm. By contrast, we can aee tuat Tonga, Fiji and Samoa perform much better, while China, Indonesia and India on average achieve incomplete secondary education. It seems however that PNG starting from a very low baseline in 1990 is catching up a relatively high speed only a bit below Indonesia, Timor Leste and India.
Primary Education
For data on education, the HDR 2020 uses the Barro-Lee estimates from 2013, which are still the best available. Regrettably, after 2010 few countries have provided reliable education indicators of any kind. Considering that educational attainment is a strong predictor of future economic development, this is truly a serious omission.
Starting with the bad news, PNG has a large reservoir of people who have not received any education at all. Education is still not compulsory in PNG, so this should be a policy change to consider. The female population with no education is a few percentage points higher, but not dramatically so.
On the plus side, PNG has made significant progress in raising the completion rate for primary schools, which was one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) no. 2 for 2015.
Secondary Education
One area where PNG is lagging is the completion rate for secondary education. Fiji and Tonga perform much better, even better than the larger Asian countries.
While for Fiji and Tonga the completion rates are higher for females, for females in PNG the completion rate is worse than the one for both sexes. We observe that PNG has a very low completion rate for females compared to Fiji and Tonga, but also relative to China, Indonesia and India.
Since completing secondary education is the only pathway to tertiary education, which is SDG-4 for 2030, it seems clear sufficient funding and effective policies need to be put in place. At first glance for all Pacific countries, education funding barely keeps pace with population growth and inflation.
Final Remarks
We wish to invite everybody to seriously reflect on these statistics. It is human not to acknowledge inconvenient facts, or argue with numbers or those who produce them. These UN statistics, however, are official numbers provided by the member states, presented in a framework that makes comparison possible.This short analysis of the data from the 30th edition of the Human Development Report, clearly shows that PICs need to improve their economic development performance, or in other words their economic growth needs to be two or three times higher than it actually is.
Secondly, it also shows more data need to be published on completion rates for primary and secondary education since the most recent data are 10 years old. In another article, we will delve into PNG education data from the recently published household surveys.
Thirdly, after a focus on MDG2 for 2015 has produced good progress towards universal primary education, in the light of the SDGs for 2030, it is necessary to focus on completion rates of secondary education. It is here where PNG has to work hard to catch up with its Pacific neighbours, or with the larger Asian countries.
Finally, it is about time to make education to upper-secondary level (grade 10) in the PICs compulsory, train the required number of teachers, and provide necessary resources to achieve this aim.
References
Barro-Lee Educational Attainment Data. (2020, December 16). Retrieved from http://barrolee.com
DataBank - Educational Statistics | The World Bank. (2020, December 16). Retrieved from https://databank.worldbank.org/home.aspx
DataBank - World Development Indicators | The World Bank. (2020, December 16). Retrieved from https://databank.worldbank.org/home.aspx
Human Development Reports | United Nations Development Programme. (2020, December 16). Retrieved from http://hdr.undp.org
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.